- Title: BELGIUM: Train strike hits rail travellers
- Date: 20th May 2008
- Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (MAY 20, 2008) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) EMPTY PLATFORM AT INTERNATIONAL TRAIN STATION GARE DU MIDI WITH A TRAIN CLOCK EMPTY PLATFORM AND RED TRAFFIC LIGHT ESCALATORS EMPTY PLATFORM WITH A TRAIN STILL TRAINS IN BRUSSELS MIDI STATION RAILWAY TRACKS TRAINS STANDING STILL IN BRUSSELS MIDI STATION RAILWAY TRACKS AIR FRANCE BUS LAID ON FOR PASSENGERS ON THEIR W
- Embargoed: 4th June 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Belgium
- Country: Belgium
- Topics: Employment,Transport
- Reuters ID: LVA3U6A9KK6QOZQGGGY1040XSJUB
- Story Text: Belgian railworkers have gone on a 24 hour strike on Tuesday (May 20) over pay and conditions with workers calling for higher purchasing power.
The strike began on Monday night at 2200 local time (2000gmt) and is due to end on Tuesday night.
All Eurostar services to the United Kingdom as well as the Thalys trains into France, Germany and the Netherlands have been disrupted.
Serious road traffic blocked several main roads and local media reported more than 180 km of traffic jams, around 0600 local time (0400gmt) on some arterial roads into the capital Brussels. However queues were not as serious as anticipated.
The ACOD and ACV-Transcom unions said their members had rejected a provisional deal for 38,000 workers agreed with management last month and talks between the rail unions and the company on Friday failed to break the deadlock.
New talks are expected to take place later this week.
"Obviously this movement is more successful today than any other action we have taken in the last few years. We are completely fed up! They don't care about workers at SNCB holding and I think that given to the problem we already had regarding this social plan, the management could not care less about us," said one rail worker, Guy van Laeken of the General Confederation of Belgian Workers union, the CGSP.
About 20 per cent of workers took the day off according to an internet poll published in the Gazet van Antwerpen daily newspaper.
Air France has laid on a special bus service to bring passengers from Brussels to Paris's Charles de Gaulles airport.
Some tourists didn't know about the strike although most Belgians had been prepared.
"When I came here I saw that everything was stopped, that there was a strike. We did not know what to do because we do not have anymore hotel booked here in Brussels and we have to go to Paris. Now we have to wait for a bus to go to Lille and wait. We are four people and we have to wait to complete forty people to full the bus and so we have problems here," said a Brazilian tourist, Vinicius Campos.
Some 400,000 to 500,000 people travel on the Belgian rail network on a typical week day and major congestion is expected on the highways. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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